[Xperia Z1 General] One Twelve:
Apple does make a capable 8MP shooter, but then they get to develop just one phone a year. The stock apple camera app is crippled in the sense there is no manual adjustment at all. pro camera app is better to use on an iphone. The ability to set exposure after focus lock is very handy and i've yet to find similar on android.

Course you have apple's 20% exta tax to pay in terms of price with 40% smaller screen size to contend with. 5 inch really is the norm noawadays.

I did not realise the shifting autofocus was a long standing problem with LG. Have there been no 3rd party apps that could do better. From some of the examples i've seen, people should have set focus on a stationary object in the same focal plane. In the lg thread there was guy who focused on himself playing a guitar, so that s a moving subject, and another focuses on the tv, again moving images that will trick the camera. The bigger problem with g2 is the dropped frame rates with video in low light. I don't know whether that can be fixed as its using the same sensor as the s4 which did not handle low light very well. ois currently is 2-axis on android so its a gimmick.

Auto if you mean focus is very good on the Z1 especially in low light. Auto or rather superior auto isn't mature yet. if you want to point & shoot and expect to get a good shot, you may be disappointed. The simplest way is set the iso manually and go click. That's it. Once you get used to how the camera works, you will never want to go back to auto.

As for grainy & blurry, the first is due to high iso picked by SA, and blurry can be anything from shaky hands to smudges on the lens. You want a good low light shot, you need low ISO and lean on something. Only high end dslrs can do low grain at high ISO and i think it will be a few years still before that level of sensor makes an appearance in a cell phone.

Z1 has been out what, just over a month now, give it some more time and we'll see how it shapes up. The camera ain't that bad. Thing is people who are happy do not join forums, its only people with issues that do and this tends to skew things a bit. There is one star reviewer problem to adjust for. Basically somebody who has no clue how to use the device, trashing it. Then there the reviewers who have no interest to get to know the camera either. They just point & click and issue condemnations.

htc one has to be one of the most put upon phones out there because every idiot with an opinion thinks 4MP isn't enough. What cracks me up is nobody has a display that can do more than 2MP. A full HD screen can only display 2MP, hello! So what are they ranting about. HTC one has many options to get good pics and the better ones are definitely up there. The only real limitation 4MP places is that you cannot get a bigger print than 10x14 inches. is that really such a big deal.

Of late people have been complaining about tinting on the htc one due to overheating, i'm not sure as to why the tints occur, but that's a concern.

Nokia will be competitive starting from next year if they get their app market up & going. nokias 920 & up have 3-axis ois so the stabilisation is the best you can get on a phone at the moment. Though the 920 was better at this than the 1020. About taking ages, there are other apps besides procamera OOTB, so quicker shots are possible with the 1020. if you want 41MP oversampled down to 5MP then it takes 4 seconds between shots.

The pro camera app on the nokia is excellent, its available from the 720 and up with the latest amber update. I wish we had shutter speed control in android apps, it would make it much easier than is presently the case.

Lowlight ability is better with this year's phones, this was one thing missing as any phone can take good photos in sunlight. What about indoors preferably without a flash. Nokia 720, 920 and up, HTC one & Z1. The others cannot keep up. Taking a good photo on a camera phone is harder than a compact or dslr because its limited. You need to know the device, and have some idea about quality of light. Do that and you photos will come out much better than before and you will be able to take photos you never could with more capable devices. You don't need to be a 'pro' photographer you just need to learn to think like one. It takes work and you got to improvise.

It's an incremental update. Since there are very few demo's to go by i'm not holding my breath. if samsung gets a 3 axis ois then good. But you know what, if you want stable video and have no ois, or stable hands, just get a slingshot. Your video with a 3 yr old phone will be more stable than anything samsung can put out next year or anybody else for that matter.

I'd hold out for better camera software though. The devices are capable and should be able to do more than currently. Hopefully 3rd party developers will fill that gap soon.